BarKeep Support

Last updated September 11, 2026

BarKeep is a home-bar inventory app for iPhone and iPad. Track what is on your shelf, see which cocktails you can actually make tonight, and get a nudge before a bottle runs dry.

It helps enormously if you can include your iOS version, your device (iPhone or iPad model), and what you were doing when something went wrong. A screenshot is worth a paragraph.

Requirements

BarKeep requires iOS 27 or later on iPhone or iPad. That floor is not arbitrary: on-device bottle identification uses Apple Intelligence APIs that do not exist on earlier versions.

The app is rated 18+ for frequent alcohol references.

Adding bottles

There are three ways, and you can mix them freely:

• Photograph the label. On-device AI reads the brand, category, strength and size. It runs entirely on your phone, costs nothing, and works offline.
• Scan the barcode. If the bottle is new to your shelf, BarKeep looks it up in a public product database to fill in the details.
• Type it in. Always available, and every field from the other two methods stays editable.

If identification gets something wrong, just correct it before saving — nothing is locked. Heavily stylised labels, split wordmarks and unusual bottles are the hard cases. Reading small print like ABV and volume depends a lot on focus and glare, so a straight-on photo in decent light does noticeably better than an angled one.

Bottle recognition: On-Device or Claude

Settings › Intelligence lets you choose which engine identifies bottles.

• On-Device is the default. Photos never leave your phone and there is no cost per identification. It can be less accurate on heavily stylised labels.
• Claude is more accurate on difficult labels, and requires your own Anthropic API key, entered in Settings. Usage is billed to your Anthropic account, not to BarKeep — there is no markup and no subscription involved. A typical bottle scan costs a few cents.

You can switch between them at any time, and the same choice is offered separately for “Ask the Barkeep”.

BarKeep Pro

The core app is free forever. Inventory, cocktails, on-device bottle identification, barcode scanning, low-stock alerts and the built-in recipe library are not behind a paywall and are not time-limited.

Pro adds:

• Advanced Stats — spend tracking, most-used spirits, pour history
• Export — your inventory and recipe book as a JSON file
• Home Screen Widgets — low stock and makeable-now
• More Recipe Imports — a higher cap on recipes imported from URLs, text and TheCocktailDB
• Written Tasting Notes — a tasting note written for recipes you import

Pro is $2.99 per month or $19.99 per year. The yearly plan includes a one-week free trial; the monthly plan does not. Prices shown in the app are the ones that apply in your region.

Managing your subscription

• Cancel or change plan: iPhone Settings › your name › Subscriptions › BarKeep. Subscriptions are managed by Apple, not by BarKeep, so this is the only place they can be changed.
• Cancelling keeps your access until the end of the period you have already paid for — or, during a trial, until the trial ends. It stops the next renewal; it does not revoke access immediately.
• Free trials convert to a paid year unless cancelled at least 24 hours before they end.
• Refunds are handled by Apple, at reportaproblem.apple.com. BarKeep cannot issue them.

“I paid but Pro is not unlocked”

Open the paywall and tap Restore Purchases. That re-reads your entitlements from Apple and is the fix for almost every case, including a new device, a reinstall, or a purchase that completed while the app was closing.

If it still does not unlock, check that the device is signed into the same Apple Account that made the purchase, then email me with the approximate date of purchase and I will help sort it out.

Your data

Your bottles, recipes, ratings and notes live on your device. There are no accounts, no advertising SDKs, and nothing to sign up for. Optional iCloud Backup syncs your bar between your own devices through your personal iCloud account.

A few features do reach outside the phone, and each one is described in full in the privacy policy — barcode lookup, optional Claude identification, recipe import, and written tasting notes.

To delete everything: deleting the app removes its local data. If you used iCloud Backup, also remove BarKeep's data from iCloud in iPhone Settings › your name › iCloud › Manage Account Storage.

Something else

Feature requests are genuinely welcome, and so are bug reports about recipes that look wrong or bottles that identify badly — those are the ones that most often turn into real fixes.

support@homebarkeep.com

Privacy

The full privacy policy is here.